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Ubuntu Tricks : How to Mount Your Windows Partitons make it read,writable

debianadmin.com — This is very simple tutorial how to mount your NTFS and FAT partitions in ubuntu and make these Partitons as read and writable

Who dugg this? Made popular Nov 13, 2006

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  • doolin, on 10/12/2007, -5/+28Also known as: how to hose your NTFS partition :)
  • Avogadro65, on 10/12/2007, -1/+23OR...

    I'm a programmer that works in a Windows environment, and I use my laptop for both work and personal things. If I'm using Linux at home, I'd like to be able to access my music and other files that're on my Windows partition. Also, my friends and my fiancee sometimes use my laptop, and it's much easier to just boot it into XP than to explain how to do everything in Linux.

    I'm sorry I'm not a "real" Linux user, but sometimes it's really just not worth the hassle.
  • gnarbuckets, on 10/12/2007, -1/+20I only speak English because I am smart. Screw anyone who speaks any other language, they should speak MY language!

    /sarcasm
  • latova, on 10/12/2007, -3/+20-== WORD OF WARNING ==-
    NTFS writing is not "perfect"! Make sure you have a backup of your data before attempting this! You're better off having a FAT32 partition somewhere or transferring files through a usb drive if you want to send files to windows!
  • Buelldozer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+16http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Edgy

    All of that plus a ton more.
  • wheaty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12@DevilsAdv0cate

    It's pompous ***** like you that are slowing the adoption of Linux. Maybe they're just using their windows partition as training wheels. But someone as leet haxxor as yourself might not understand that... Rational people don't just submerge themselves in something they know nothing about and just bank on the fact that they can just 'figure it out' real quick. Everything takes time to learn. Back up off the newbies.
  • halofourteen, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11Or, some people have expensive applications (Photoshop, Vegas, Dreamweaver) that can't run in Linux. Instead of using wine, some people simply reboot and use the application bug-free.
  • Avogadro65, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I think that's read-only.
  • chutz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I am a Linux systems administrator, and a Gentoo Linux developer. I also have a windows partition on my home machine, I use it when I want to play games such as Half-Life 2 and Prey.

    A Linux user having a windows partition does not mean that they don't know Linux or that they aren't real Linux users, all it means is that there is something that they like to do on windows, which is considerably more difficult to do on Linux. Having a windows partition also lets me avoid having to load binary blobs into my kernel, which is always a good thing.
  • thesteampunk, on 10/12/2007, -3/+7@8086ed

    I'm tired of it, too. This has been a topic of discussion on the Ubuntu Forums for over a year.

    @SushiCW

    You obviously didn't want to know that bad or you'd have found it on Google or the Ubuntu Forums. I've seen this article on Digg more times that I can count. It has become spam.
  • michuk, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6More about Linux partitions including mounting a pendrive, a CDROM and basic info about Linux filesystem: http://polishlinux.org/first-steps/filesystem-and-disks/
  • ahhell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4The summary sounds dirty.
  • n8r0n, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4My laptop is strictly Linux (Ubuntu 6.10). I run Windows via VMware. When I need to write to my external HDD (which is NTFS) I will mount it in my Windows VM and write to it from there. I map my Linux host through VMware and pass the files I need to write to Windows then copy them to the external HDD.

    I gave up dual booting long ago. If you have sufficient RAM and a decent proc VMware works just fine, even running Photoshop CS2.

    Writing to NTFS via Linux is just too risky at the moment.
  • billwands, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Their are millions of reasons why this is useful and you are stupid.
  • illicium, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Better yet: http://www.jankratochvil.net/project/captive/

    Native Windows NTFS drivers on Linux via Wine.
  • msgyrd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3You can't play the newest games in a virtual machine.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It's not that it is only read only, but it only allows writing in the sense of overwriting already present files. This kernel option is generally disabled by default and would require a recompile on most distrobutions.
  • farr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Dugg down for stating my experience with Ubuntu and windows partitions? Thanks everyone =)
  • shuffle2, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4...which is currently the only 100% good way to handle ntfs in linux.
  • Alisic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Nah, I wouldn't want them to be writable. If Ubuntu doesn't mount it by default just edit your fstab file a bit and then run mount -a, should work.
  • givre, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2captive is slow, buggy and unmaintained.
    It seamed at first to be a good idea, but
    they didn't manage to get it really working.

    ntfs-3g just works.
    People that are not convince should just try it.
    http://www.ntfs-3g.org
  • Slipknotic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Now if only someone could do this for FC6:(.
  • bllambert, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Read only should be good enough. Its not worth the risk. If you have a NTFS partition. Just log into windows to make changes. Or just open a read only copy of your document and save it in an open format on your Linux drive.
  • rgeide, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Anyone notice the misspelling in the title of the webpage...I thought it was funny.
  • myfanwy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1what? the installer asks if you want to mount other (NTFS, FAT, HFS, etc.) drives when it goes through the installation process. i'm not entirely convinced i want them to be writable (windows hosed 2,000+ files i'd written to a FAT USB drive in Ubuntu, i hate to think what would happen with a proprietary FS like NTFS). so, i still don't trust FUSE, but if you're willing to take the risk, it's easy enough to do using the the disks option under administration.
  • dree, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1NTFS-3g is already in Fedora Extras (this repository is enabled by default, you don't need to do anything to add it)

    open a terminal, change to root (or sudo, if you set that up), yum install ntfs-3g, and you're done.

    then to mount (open a terminal, change to root):

    mkdir /c
    ntfs-3g /dev/hda1 /c

    (for read-only, use: ntfs-3g /dev/hda1 /c -o ro)



    Use NTFS-3g instead of the outdated methods (Captive, kernel mods,etc).



  • totorototoro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Linux can read/write NTFS? That's pretty cool-wish I had that on OS X.
  • sishgupta, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Honestly, as always one should always keep a backup of important files. This is regardless of whether we are in windows, or in linux using ext3, or in linux using ntfs.

    I am using ntfs-3g to read/write to my 120gb ntfs drive and everything works perfectly. No errors yet.

    I think that there is still a lot of stigma regarding ntfs in gnu/linux. This is partly because for years write access flat out didn't work and there were some very weak initiatives to make write access work. This is no longer the case IMO.

    NTFS-3g works very well. and as long as you have a proper backup to your files there should be no permanent damage to anything.
  • dree, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1NTFS-3g is the preferred over Captive to read/write in Linux. Just because Captive uses the windows' sys file, that doesn't mean it better.
  • lowerlogic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Instead of worrying about trying to make Linux write to NTFS safely and perfectly, here's what I do:
    I have a 10GB NTFS partition for the Windows OS and a few other vital programs, and everything else is put in an windows/ folder on an ext3 Partition, which I also use as the Linux /home directory. All I needed to do was download an ext3 driver for Windows and it was able to mount it pretty easily. That way, if I ever need to access Windows things while in Linux, I just need to go to /home/windows/ in linux. So all my programs are in /home/windows/Program Files and downloads and stuff are all in /home/windows/downloads. In Windows I can access everything in /home/lowerlogic by going to G:/windows/lowerlogic, and when I install programs I install them in G:/windows/Program Files.
  • VinceNoir, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@Avogadro65

    Well... I can't agree with you entirely. Back when I used to use Windows, I was constantly tweaking the system to perfection by making all kinds of registry entries and fiddling with config files. I was looking for the ultimate experience in general. Then I discovered Linux and the endless possibilities there for an even more ultimate experience. So, for someone like me, the "aggravation" whether in Windows or Linux was certainly worth it. And in the end, I would say that no matter which OS I use, I'd be constantly working on it to make things just right because no one has developed the perfect OS for me. However, with Linux I can come a lot closer to my ideal than I can with Windows...
  • seanmc303, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I call poppycock. I have my xp machine mapping to my linux machine drive and my linux machine reading and writing to the mounted xp machines hard drive. Wasn't too tricky and I haven't had any problems except for the occasional permissions issues.
  • foxhoundadmin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1now sudo apt and ftp into lolomfgwtf. then, type two-dozen other 1337 lines of code in console, and you're done! now, wasn't that easy!

    NO!

    oh yeah, just a quick reminder/warning: linux might destroy ALL your fat/ntfs data! so, don't forget to back up that 200gb hdd full of important data! :D
  • mrsteveman1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0The open source NTFS project isnt ready to write new files to ntfs yet, though you can alter current files because it doesnt involve making a new entry (ntfs is built like a database).

    Using windows doesnt mean you wont or cant use linux well, They're not mutually exclusive, i would LIKE to use linux exclusively simply because i dont trust windows, and microsofts obsession with licensing is stupid, not to mention xp is barely worth stealing, however the user interface in linux (x11 with gnome specifically) is not very refined, gnome is nowhere near the level of integration that windows and osx have, i get the impression im working in a shaky but developing interface when i work in gnome (havent used kde).

    Very little attention is placed on graphic interfaces in linux, ubuntu is a good example of attention being placed on the interface, far better than redhat ever was. If ubuntu develops more (And gnome), they would be serious competition for windows and osx.

    There will always be idiots and incompetent users, right now a good portion of them are using windows and osx, but i see alot of them migrating to ubuntu at the moment, not because ubuntu is better at anything but because its not windows, its "Cool" to hate microsoft (hell i hate microsoft), but if your going to hate windows do it for a reason not because linux is 1337.
  • 0KonTroL0, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Tips and Tricks: How to mount your windows partition with SuSE:

    do absolutely nothing, it is automatic.
  • SushiCW, on 10/12/2007, -7/+7That may be true, but it's the first time I've seen it and it's something I've wanted to know how to do. Dugg.
  • farr, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I really don't trust NTFS reading in linux, especially Ubuntu, where after playing a few mp3s from my windows partition, upon rebooting and attempting to load Windows... I no longer had an NTFS partition. The drive is physically fine, and I eventually recovered all the data, but it was still a giant pain in the rear.

    This is only for the adventerous and the well-backed-up.
  • antdude, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1http://duggmirror.com/linux_unix/Ubuntu_Tricks_How_to_Mount_Your_Windows_Partitons_make_it_read_writable/
  • mtxblau, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I know out of safety concerns it doesn't write to fstab, but it would be nice if at the very least the installer either 1) gave you the option to make it accessible or 2) mounted it read only.

    I believe Suse has been doing it for years without repercussions (and as an aside, if Suse 10.1 didn't suck so horrifically, I'd still be using it).

    As for myself, three partitions - NTFS for XP, FAT32 with all my shared documents (music, docs, pictures, etc.) and the third for Linux (K/Eft 6.10). My Documents is linked to a folder on the shared drive, and no program complains about it.
  • Phocion55, on 10/12/2007, -10/+8Maybe the Windows partition is for the users who still understand and observe something called "market share" ?
  • shuffle2, on 10/12/2007, -13/+1wow! why don't people that use ubuntu just figure out how to use the ntfs support in the kernel?
    buried!
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -26/+7This has hit the front page at least 5 times. I use Ubuntu, and I'm tired of this story. It should stay where it belongs: ubuntuforums.com
  • DevilsAdv0cate, on 10/12/2007, -44/+0This digg is idiotic. Why on earth would any real linux user have a windows partition. Either you embrace your stupidity and just use windows, or you're smart and use linux exclusively. The rest are just kidding themselves, trying to pretend they're smart by installing linux, but falling back on windows because they just are too friggin thick to figure out how to work it.

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